


Redemption

by hanzo-lo (Xireyna)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, and mccree suddenly realizes that college will not be easy, because his professor gives hard exams and he's hot so he can't be mad about the exams, hanzo is his biology professor though, he's a great student though, i'm trying lol, it's a college fic but jesse is twenty nine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 07:50:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12930807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xireyna/pseuds/hanzo-lo
Summary: The Deadlock Gang stole his life from him when he was fifteen, and Blackwatch made sure he wouldn't get it back when he was seventeen. Now, he's twenty-nine and changed beyond belief from that same teenaged boy, but the deep want to be normal has never left him, no matter how many times he's tried to smash it down.





	Redemption

“If you don’t hit the target, he’s going to escape and someone is going to have a very bad time.” Her voice is feminine and sultry, but it’s quiet. Regardless, the threat is clearly conveyed in her voice. "Obey or there'll be consequences," is what she means when she says those words. He isn't stupid.

 _But, maybe I did want him to escape. Maybe this shit jus' ain't me anymore, and maybe I want out. Didja think about that?_ A thought, never spoken out loud.

A loud crack resonates through the air, and the handler next to McCree jumps. She never got used to the sound. The woman places a hand on McCree's shoulder, and smiles reassuringly at him. "You've done well, but maybe you need a... readjustment. It took you longer than it should have for that, and we just want to make sure you're on top of your game."

And, when they started to talk about doing things to his mind, "readjusting" him, that's when he knew it was over for him. That's when he knew he was gone for good, and no more fancy government benefits could convince him otherwise. They had taken everything else from him, why should they take what was left of his free will? 

Jesse McCree, self-proclaimed dead-eye and western cowboy, was a part of the classified government death squad since he was seventeen. He was twenty-seven when the first seeds of doubt began to bloom in his mind. The way he viewed it, he wasted ten years of his life on this. One day, he finally decided he had enough.

He’d wanted out, and nobody fought him on it. After his last mission, he had gotten up and walked out. Nobody tried to stop him. Nobody wanted to stop him. Jesse liked to think that nobody stopped him because they all understood, or at least, they had some semblance of understanding that Blackwatch was _not_ him anymore.

He’d roamed for a while around the United States, trying to find a place where he could settle down for once in his life and just be normal. It wasn’t that he was picky, it was just that nothing felt right. At least, until it did. Jesse found a quaint home over in southern Louisiana and bought it, paid off with the hefty amounts of money he made during his stay in Blackwatch and made himself as at home as he could. It was a decent sized house, three bedrooms and two bathrooms. It even had that little picket fence out front that he would joke about with his ‘friends’ back in Deadlock.

What would they say if they saw him now? The boy who cracked someone’s skull for looking at him wrong, owning a house with a picket fence with two bordie collie/lab mixes running around in that front yard like _they_ owned the place. The boy, now a man, settled down in a southern part of some humid ass state in a podunk town. Would he care what they thought, craving their approval like he did when he was young? Or would he not care, and laugh at them because he knew he could be happy here without his old life haunting him?

Not that it mattered, because not even three weeks after he bought his home, Blackwatch disbanded. The government official in charge of the division wiped his hands cleans of the organization because of his recent promotion in the CIA, and everyone still there was forced to sign a confidentiality waiver, or else they would mysteriously disappear. It wasn’t until this happened that Jesse realized that nobody knew about Blackwatch, and that it wasn’t actually supposed to exist. Congress never approved the organization, because it had never even been brought the idea.

A week after Blackwatch disbanded, a grumpy Latino man moved into his house with him, and upon Jesse’s declaring that it would be “jus’ like old times, but without the dyin’ and shit,” promptly found a job working as a bouncer at a popular nightclub.

Almost two years after all of that occurred, Jesse made a decision, and decided to go through with it on a whim.

“Gabe,” a voice intones, and the owner of the name pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a sigh.

Dark eyes looked up at Jesse, a slight tinge of irritation in them at being spoken to before eight in the morning. “What?” the man in question deadpans, setting down his coffee on the coaster, something he had insisted on using because he didn’t want coffee rings on the table. Not that it really mattered, since Jesse burnt the shit out of the table by putting a hot pan on it the other day.

The cowboy sat across from him, and from the expression on his face, Gabriel knew the man was up to something. Jesse sighs and then moves to drag his metal hand down his fast, but stops at the last second. There’s an unreadable look in his eyes, almost as if he forgot his arm was no longer flesh, but a metal prosthetic. It takes him a moment, but he manages to find the words as he glances towards Gabriel on the other side of the table, “Do ya ever jus’...” he’s struggling to find the words, and Gabriel knows he is, but he isn’t willing to call him on it. One of the dogs silently pads over to the younger man and sits by his feet, looking up at him with those oddly intelligent eyes, almost like he's reassuring him that everything is okay. Jesse scratches behind the dog's ear for a moment, then when the dog nips at his hand, he remembers that he can't just not say anything after he's already interrupted Gabe's ritual before he goes to sleep.

He wrestles with his words for a few more moments before he gives up and blurts out the first thing he can piece together, “We ain’t normal, Gabe. After Blackwatch… we prob’ly won’t ever be normal. But, I wanna try, ya know? I wanna at least try ta be normal. Try ta live the life I never had.”

The irritated stare turned to one of interest, even if his face remained blank. Gabe was never one for being emotive, not since he joined the military and was recruited to Blackwatch. “What are you saying, kid?” he carefully asks, treading cautiously as to not push too far and make Jesse lock up and run, like he’d been prone to do the first few weeks that he had been there. Jesse had clearly suffered from some form of PTSD, and it reminded Gabriel of an old friend of his. The last he’d ever seen him was right before he left for a Blackwatch mission that involved assassinating some Parisian man that was causing issues for the US government, and Jack was recovering from a bad case of not being able to re-integrate himself back into society.

Gabriel still wasn’t sure if he forgave himself for leaving Jack like he did, especially since he hadn’t ever been able to get back in contact with the man. Couldn't even find out if he was alive or well. A slight frown crosses his face, but he quickly hides it with his hand so that Jesse doesn’t think he’s making faces at him.

“‘M not a kid anymore, Gabe. I’m twenty-nine. Yer only thirteen years older than I am, so don’t give me sass,” Jesse snaps back, but it’s lighthearted and Gabriel is relieved to catch the joking tone in his voice. But, Gabriel doesn’t speak. He waits a moment, and then Jesse continues, “I’m thinkin’... I’m thinkin’ I wan’ ta go to college. Finish my education. Ya know, I never finished high school. But, ya know that Blackwatch sent me a diploma in tha mail after I left, from some bullshit high school I ain’t ever even heard of. I jus’ wanna make somethin of maself. I wanna be able ta say I did more in life than just killin’ and pillagin’ and that shit. I jus’ don’t know what yet. But I think that this is a step in the right direction. Truly.”

Gabe is surprised, but he isn’t about to tell Jesse it’s a bad idea. Maybe this could be good for him.

“I think that’ll be good for you, Jesse. It’ll stop you from bothering me at seven in the morning when I haven’t even had time to sleep yet because _I work until three in the morning and I have things to do._ ” As proud as he was of Jesse, and as pleasantly surprised as he was, he can’t deny he’s still in the habit of being somewhat commanding and irritable whenever he gets too caught up in his emotions and can’t really afford to show them. Old habits die hard.

“I’ll still find a way. Ya know me. Ain’t started the day unless I made ya wanna kill someone.”

And now Jesse’s ruined it. “I’m going to bed,” Gabriel says in a monotone voice, “Don’t bother me or I’ll kill _you_ and burn your damn serape.”

The cowboy actually has the nerve to grin, “Who hurt ya, Gabe? Who hurt ya deep down inside ta make ya so damn mean all the time?”

 _“Leave me alone and go enroll in your god-damned college before I hurt_ ** _you._** ”

But Gabe is still proud, and Jesse can start to get the life that he threw away back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please, leave a comment telling me what you thought. I haven't wrote jesse since I wrote Draconic a while back, and I lost feeling for his character a bit, but I'm trying to get it back. let me know if I should continue, though. hope you guys enjoyed this.  
> as always, you can find me on tumblr @ hanzo-lo.tumblr.com


End file.
